Friday, 3 October 2014

The Torch Singer trilogy by Robert Westbrook

American writer Robert Westbrook, last month, published An Almost Perfect Ending (Swan’s Nest), the second book in his Torch Singer trilogy, a noir thriller focused on fifties Hollywood. Here is a preview of the book.

Book Two opens with “eponymous smouldering anti-hero Sonya Saint-Amant at the height of her career—a glittering, triumphant appearance at Ciro’s, the club house for the stars in 1950s Hollywood where everyone wants to claim her as their friend. But in 1954 popular music was undergoing a revolution which saw all but the biggest stars cast aside. With her looks and popularity fading, Sonya begins to plot and scheme for her Hollywood life setting old suitors against each other to vie for her attentions. Jealousy and the settling of scores take hold to be first played out on a national stage, and then finally and fatally on a rain-soaked night at a house in Beverly Hills…”

We are introduced to Sonya Saint-Amant in Book One of the trilogy. An Overnight Sensation (Swan’s Nest), published August 2014, is “a sweeping historical saga that takes the reader from the horrors of Nazi occupied Poland to the glittery excesses of Hollywood in the 1940’s and 1950’s: the rise and fall of Sonya Saint-Amant, a B-singer who schemes her way to fame and brief glory, breaking all the rules.”The third and final book in the Torch Singer series will be out in June next year, Conrad Murray, Editor-in-Chief at Swan's Nest, an imprint of bookmarq.net, Toronto, Canada, told me in an email. He sent me both the books for review. Since it will be a while before I read them, I thought I’d give you a peak into the Torch Singer trilogy.

Frankly, I’d not heard of Robert Westbrook until Conrad wrote to me. According to his short bio, the author grew up in the world of which he writes. The child of Hollywood parents in the Golden Age he brings the period alive with insight, humor, and an insider's knowledge of show business. He is the author of two critically-acclaimed mystery series, including Ancient Enemy, nominated for a Shamus Award as the Best P.I. Novel of 2002, and Intimate Lies, a memoir detailing the relationship between his mother, Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham, and the author F. Scott Fitzgerald which was published by HarperCollins in 1995. His first novel, The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, was made into an MGM motion picture.

You can read more about Robert Westbrook, a resident of Taos, New Mexico, and his books at his website, at Bookmarq, and on his Amazon page.